At the same time, you love yourself beyond anything. To beat the shit out of yourself just because you do not fit into some stupid ideas others imposed on you, is madness. You made yourself believe that you should be what society wants you to be. instead of who you are. How can you find peace if you are your own torturer? Start trusting yourself more then you trust others. There is no peace without total love of every aspect of oneself.

I'm trying, I'm trying.

Johnny Dangerous wrote:I know this sounds like a bullshit answer, but is there any kind of thing you can sign up for or do for socialization... a class, something? It's seriously funny how mundane nonsense can sometimes help with some of these feelings. it not a very profound answer, but at least if you can find some way to have interaction with people you like somewhat - even if it's artificial and shallow, you might be able to have a little more grip on some of these emotions, that shit festers when you are lonely..speaking from personal experience.

I tried some online groups but the people were odd. Maybe I should try again.

Ayu wrote:I think, it is only possible to hate oneself, if one takes the SELF as very serious and very important. "I'm a very, very important. That's why I have to be PERFECT! Otherwise I have to hate myself." This is a stupid theater and if you see through it, you can burst out laughing! ... But not right in that black moment. Then i take it as bad weather. It will past.

Four remedies:- Mettameditation for myself- Taking refuge: in the three jewels, going "into my shell", taking quiet for one day...- Turning the sight: instead of seeing a big Self with some extraneous figures (people) around, it is sometimes healthy to see this self vanishing to nothingness and looking sharpened at the "figures" as full, important human beings. It is like if you turn the focus of a camera: what was near dissolves and what was dimmed far away becomes clear and sharp.- Accept the moment like it is.

undefineable wrote:To see yourself as worthy of hatred in the first place -rather than of an indifferent or positive regard- you have to have felt yourself to be the centre of the universe to begin with, i.e. you have to be an ordinary sentient being. If you try instead to see yourself as 'one of many', then you may ask how the nature of this one person -whose supposed vileness has yet to suck the earth into a supernatural black hole - could be sooo 'wrong' as to merit their own hate.

On the other hand, those who don't effortlessly 'fit into some stupid ideas others imposed on (them)' already, or find themselves being 'what society wants them to be' are clearly in that situtation because of positive karma inherited from previous lives, or (if you don't believe in karma) because of good luck. This isn't to say that an unusual mind reflects negative past karma in and of itself, since much the same mind could have developed within a species for which it was a paragon of 'normal'. The mismatch is what presents the obstacles that trigger suffering, but the challenge is to realise that there needn't be any suffering (self-hatred for example) beyond what others may inflict directly, and to live accordingly. It's worth a try, as the negative impact of self-hate can far outlive the feeling itself.

Nonetheless, it seems that people 'hate themselves' for many reasons - apart from just feeling or believing themselves to be 'different'

Thank you both. You're certainly on to something. Maybe that's one of the reasons the Sutras and Treatises don't discuss self-metta. Because compassion and Bodhicitta reduce the focus on self to the point depression and hatred about the self don't arise. I'll start practicing Bodhicitta and working on my pride.

Matt J wrote:I think the first step is acceptance. Before anything else. You can't deal with what is happening unless you accept what is happening. Feelings are what they are: we typically cannot control our feelings any more than we can control the weather. But when it rains, I don't try to pretend it's not raining. And I don't get upset with the rain--- rain just happens. I accept that it is raining and go from there.

Accepting the truth of pain is actually learning the truth of suffering, the first Noble Truth. We all suffer. Suffering is a part of life. How to handle this suffering? This is where the teaching of the dharma comes in. It is easy: it starts with the precepts. No one is perfect at the precepts, but we try. You get good by trying over and over again. Once we have made some way with precepts, then it is possible to meditate. Maybe not for long at first: perhaps 5 minutes, or even 1 minute. But a little is better than none. LIttle actions, over time, lead to changes. This is how the universe works.

This is important. I keep trying to run away from my feelings. Obviously, it isn't working.

Koji wrote:The first think I want to know is this, are you having dreams?

I suppose so. I'm having a lot of night terrors. I had one last week where I woke up screaming on the floor thinking something had grasped my legs and pulled me off the bed.

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

What really helped me was noticing these big old smelly painful periods of pain and depression do in fact come and go.Not only that, but noticing that I didn't just sit there and willingly conjure up the best way to feel like shit.It impersonally comes up who knows why, stays a while, then moves on.Do you notice the times you don't feel so bad? That's the trough. It really does rise and fall.

It's all well and good to think "these feelings are not me or mine".But I often seem to make exceptions for old favorites, me the "taken advantage of," me the "too cerebral and cold," me the "hypersexual".A few years ago, it was me the "only good for working and nothing else," me the "they won't miss me".

It's can be extremely counterintuitive to spot any habit, especially an emotional habit that has you by the entrails.Habits hide in their familiarity, blending into the background.You have to be like a detective.Seek out the new details in deceptively well-known territory.It takes bravery, even a sense of daring, to call into question the authority of your own feelings.But you've rehearsed the lines and story so many times already... it can wait while you look for some "one" or some "cause" that made all this sadness happen.

I would say depression is characterized by a lack of curiosity. That's how we keep getting trapped, too.Buying in, accepting at face value, it gets heavier and heavier. I used to do a lot of buying in.If I catch myself and go, "oh! that thing again, I feel heaviness in my chest, I'm mistrusting those I love..."It definitely has calling cards you can recognize. It's a process, a cycle. For me, that makes it much less overwhelming.

I won't say the results are immediate.But these days, the bag of rocks feels much lighter.

That's the interesting thing. I've been more attention to my thoughts, and I notice that these 'spells' come up, overwhelming me and leave. Before and after I can reason against these feelings and then a spell hits and my reasoning disappears and purely on automatic I start with the usual.

I'm going to try just sitting with the feeling. It helps stop my addition spells, so it might help here too.

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

Thank you both. You're certainly on to something. Maybe that's one of the reasons the Sutras and Treatises don't discuss self-metta. Because compassion and Bodhicitta reduce the focus on self to the point depression and hatred about the self don't arise. I'll start practicing Bodhicitta and working on my pride.

Maybe recent teachers' emphasis on self-metta has more to do with recent cultural conditions than with the universal superiority of str8-up Bodhichitta - If 'depression and hatred about the self' have already arisen, then compassion for others alone is not gonna be enough to shift them, otherwise we wouldn't have the cliche/truism: "to love others you have to love yourself first". {In this case, it makes sense for the word 'love' to be meant in the broader sense of radiating the warm goodwill that's fundamental to our human (and sentient?) nature, rather than in the sense of obsessively focusing all our attention on the object of love.}

Konchog1 wrote:I keep trying to run away from my feelings.

For me, self-hate itself was a way of trying to run away from negative feelings. A degree of rationalisation -even if it's done on a subconscious level- is needed before you can feel that you hate the only reality that naturally means much to you. First, you feel afraid, lonely, or whatever else, but then, you justify those feelings as being a natural response to some technical problem in the fabric of your own being, and -guess what- you have the perfect excuse to avoid dealing directly with the original feelings, which nonetheless (and unsurprisingly) fail to lessen. As Ayu said (and as I forgot to credit Ayu with saying when I commented on his/her post at the start of my last post ), viewing yourself as if you were extremely important gives you a reason to make a big deal of this (to the point of hate); it also deepens the delusion that there could be 'a technical problem in the fabric of your own being'.

"Removing the barrier between this and that is the only solution" {Chogyam Trungpa - "The Lion's Roar"}

Something that made me feel better recently was watching Meditate & Destroy on Netflix. I had never really thought much of Noah Levine before. I just happened to see it on Netflix so I decided to watch it. Wow, his life made me feel better about myself. It also becomes really obvious that there are many Buddhists out there who have been worse human beings (criminally speaking) than I have ever been and who have overcome major problems like crack and heroin addiction thanks to dedicating their lives to the dharma.

I think we just tend to be harder on ourselves in the same way we tend to be more forgiving of ourselves than others. It's a strange balancing act, but somehow we do it.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

god that could be a intense movie for me. i used to do amphetamine but i got out of it by the time i was 19 and soon after that found the dharma.

it seems that every dharma practitioner and non dharma practitioners have theyre own demons that are basically used as a reflection to work on ourselves and the dharma. its interesting. ( i might be wrong but this is my experience )

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

KonchokZoepa wrote:god that could be a intense movie for me. i used to do amphetamine but i got out of it by the time i was 19 and soon after that found the dharma.

it seems that every dharma practitioner and non dharma practitioners have theyre own demons that are basically used as a reflection to work on ourselves and the dharma. its interesting. ( i might be wrong but this is my experience )

I think it would make you feel good. You should check it out. At first I was kind of getting the feeling of "oh this is that typical ex-junkie bravado trip" where people love to relive their glory days and tell you how bad they were. I'm not sure why, but a lot of people feel proud of their past drug use while at the same time being a bit ashamed, too. I was that way about acid for a while, now I can't stand to hear people wax on about drugs. But, it didn't take long, anyway, before I realized it wasn't really about that at all. About 20 minutes in you realize the hell this kid was living in and how much he hated himself and wanted to die. It's worth watching.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

KonchokZoepa wrote:god that could be a intense movie for me. i used to do amphetamine but i got out of it by the time i was 19 and soon after that found the dharma.

it seems that every dharma practitioner and non dharma practitioners have theyre own demons that are basically used as a reflection to work on ourselves and the dharma. its interesting. ( i might be wrong but this is my experience )

Well, that's first noble truth really isn't it, once you can look at your garbage objectively it causes you to ask some questions!

KonchokZoepa wrote:it seems that every dharma practitioner and non dharma practitioners have theyre own demons that are basically used as a reflection to work on ourselves and the dharma. its interesting. ( i might be wrong but this is my experience )

Well, that's first noble truth really isn't it, once you can look at your garbage objectively it causes you to ask some questions!

i wasnt talking about the first noble truth, i was basically talking about our own maras that haunt and disturb us. and even though mara makes everything a lot harder, we have to thank the mara for giving us the opportunity to learn, cleanse and purify and face the demon(s).

and im not talking about mara for me being a drug problem, that i dont have, but i have lots of other mental problems that reflect back to the physical that makes the situation seem more hellish, but as i work and purify the whole world is purified.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

The good part about the doc is how it shows the dharma works for people with these problems. Noah Levine is obviously a very changed man even though his attitude, appearance and practice is way different from my own. It's cool to see how much people can change.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

Then in the four boundless ones can ourselves not be excluded: Compassion, loving kindness, joy in equanimity.

When we strive and fail, exhaust ourselves for this or that, the peaceful compassionate nature remains hidden. Then check the value of this, I see some words of H H The Dalai Lama in them, even the choice of words differ:

"When learning to love, forgive, and cultivate compassion it is only possible to do this if we start with ourselves. Otherwise what we try to give to others and are not authentically giving to ourselves will have a sense of hollowness or inauthenticity. Often we become drained, emotionally exhausted, and resentful when we give to others what we have not given ourselves".http://whatismindfulness2.wordpress.com ... ompassion/

We might think, oh I only want to offer good things, and then all the bad things stay on our shoulders, but having faith means trusting that Avalokiteshvara or whichever deity you offer to is really big and compassionate enough to handle that and even transform it for you.

we cannot get rid of God because we still believe in grammar - Nietzsche

You have posted a great topic that I am interested in. I am glad that you did not suicide and share your troubles with us here. My story in suicide is similar to yours.

I have experience of the thoughts of suicide before in the past. I was living a really stressful life last time, my life is primary consist of work, study and my gf scolding me all the time over little things I forget, be it how stressful I am or even near exams. She would sometimes scold me continuously for 3 hours non-stop, a few times even 3 days. Ask for breakups, or claiming I don't love her anymore. We quarrel very often, once every week for a year now, I was really down and depress. She would scold me everytime I have make a mistake. I become very afraid and even depress whenever I made a mistake.

After practising the dharma, I have learned to see things differently.

When someone scolds you or vent his anger at you, the person do not want to suffer too.Everyone do not want to suffer, but some avoid suffering in the wrong way by generating negative feelings to others.Sometimes people scolds you is because they care about you, just that they are showing their care in a way that is different from showing care being patience and teaching with kindness.Essentially, everyone is the same, except some have tries the wrong way not to suffer, such as pushing the blame to others.So, those of us who understand suffering better should knows the best way not to suffer, that is to accept the suffering.After every thunderstorm is always a fresh welcoming air. Everyone wants themselves to be taken notice and their points to be agreed on.

My girlfriend still scolds me frequently, I let her understands that I know she matter about me that is why she scolds me whenever I did the wrong things. I apologise and told her I will change and learn not to do it again. I let her know it is my fault and will change my ways. I never scold her back or quarrel back with her no matter what is the situation, it does not matter who is right or wrong. Through this our relationship has improved.

See those around you that slanders you as their spiritual teacher.Small words like good morning, have a nice day, can make someone happy, learn to use it.Only through compassion and kindness then you will be rewarded with happiness.Learn to genuine make someone day through praise, greetings, agreeing with someone.Learn to accept defeat and offering victory to them.

When you make a mistake or late for an appointment, learn to accept it. Making mistakes is part of our life. Don't be afraid to make a mistake, if you life a honest livehood and have done noting wrong, there is noting to afraid. If it still doesn't helps, meditate and thought about the mistake you made instead of avoiding to think about it. Then learn to accept and let the mistake go.

Lastly, I wish you have a nice day ahead and hope your condition would improve through meditation.

We are born with compassion, it is just that we had lost it. Understand no matter what happens, you already had shelter and food, these are enough for you to find happiness.